Vacuum cleaners are often made from parts which can be complicated and expensive to manufacture.
One such part is known as a “vortex finder plate”. An exploded view of a prior art cyclonic separating apparatus comprising a vortex finder plate is shown in FIG. 1a. A perspective view of the vortex finder plate itself can be seen in FIG. 1b and a section through the vortex finder plate can be seen in FIG. 1c. 
It can be seen that the cyclonic separating apparatus 1 comprises a plurality of cyclones 2 which are arranged in parallel in terms of airflow passing through the cyclones 2. Each cyclone 2 has an air inlet 4 and an air outlet 6. The air outlets 6 are in the form of so called “vortex finders” 8 which protrude through vortex finder apertures in a seal 9 into a top end of each cyclone 2. It can be seen that the vortex finders 8 are an integral part of the vortex finder plate 10.
As can be seen from FIG. 1a each of the plurality of cyclones 2 is angled such that their lower ends 12 point towards a central axis A of the cyclonic separating apparatus 1. This angling of the cyclones 2 is often done to minimize the overall size of the cyclonic separating apparatus 1. This angling of the cyclones 2 however has to be mirrored in the vortex finder plate 10 and vortex finders 8 so that a tight seal can be formed between the upper edges 14 of the cyclones 2 and the vortex finder plate 10. In order to achieve this and as can be seen in FIGS. 1a and 1b the vortex finder plate 10 is not flat, instead it is sloped towards its outer edge 16 in all directions. Each of the vortex finders 8 are also angled towards axis A. This means that the vortex finders 8 on the vortex finder plate 10 are all arranged at different angles to each other.
The manufacture of such a vortex finder plate 10 therefore poses a problem because each vortex finder 8 is pointing in a different direction and there is an undercut 18 between the lower surface 20 of the vortex finder plate 10 and each of the vortex finders 8. The tool 22 that is currently used to produce such vortex finder plates 10 is shown schematically in FIGS. 2a to 2f. 
FIG. 2a shows an exploded view of a section through the tool 22 with the component parts moved into the open position. It can be seen that the tool 22 is very complex, comprising a lower core 24 having a plurality of separate lower core pins 26 which are used to form the inner surfaces of at least some of the vortex finders 8. The tool 22 also comprises a lifter section 28 which is necessary to deal with the undercuts 18 between the lower surface 20 of the vortex finder plate 10 and the vortex finders 8. This lifter section 28 will be explained in more detail later.
The tool 22 also comprises an upper cavity part 30 and a plurality of separate upper core pins 32.
To manufacture a vortex finder plate 10, all of the parts of the tool 22 are brought together to form a cavity 34 formed between the parts; this is the position shown in section in FIG. 2b. A molten plastics material is forced into the cavity 34, for example by injection molding. The molten plastics material is left to solidify to form the vortex finder plate 10. Once the vortex finder plate 10 has solidified within the cavity 34, it then has to be removed from the tool 22.
The sequence of movements of the parts of the tool 22, necessary for removal of the formed vortex finder plate 10, is shown in FIGS. 2c to 2f. For clarity the formed vortex finder plate 10 is not shown.
In FIG. 2c it can be seen that the first action needed to remove the formed vortex finder plate 10 is to lift the upper core pins 32 such that their lower ends 36 are freed from their position inside the newly formed vortex finders 8. Since each vortex finder 8 is at a different angle the upper core pins 32 cannot simply be moved upwardly, instead each upper core pin 32 has to be removed upwardly and outwardly. It is for this reason that the upper core pins 32 have to be separate from each other and from the upper cavity part 30.
After the upper core pins 32 have been moved, the upper cavity part 30 is lifted from the lower core part 24 as shown in FIG. 2d. The next step is shown in FIG. 2e and comprises lowering the lower core pins 26. Again because each vortex finder 8 is at a different angle the lower core pins 26 cannot simply be moved downwardly, instead each lower core pin 26 has to be removed downwardly and inwardly. Again it is for this reason that the lower core pins 26 have to be separate from each other and from the lower core part 24.
After the lower core pins 26 have been moved it is then necessary to move the lifter sections 28 in an upward and inward direction so that the formed vortex finder plate 10 can be released from the tool 22. These lifter sections 28 are necessary because of the undercut 18 formed between each of the vortex finders 8 and the lower surface 20 of the vortex finder plate 10. This problem can be visualized best in FIG. 2e where the formed vortex finder plate 10 would be positioned on the upper surface 44 of the lower core part 24 with the vortex finders 8 located in the cavities 38. As can be seen in FIG. 2e if the lower central part of the tool 22, which is formed from the lifter sections 28 and a lower central core part 40, was formed in one piece it would be trapped between the inwardly pointing vortex finders 8 and therefore it would be impossible to remove the formed vortex finder plate 10 from the lower core part 24.
As shown in FIG. 2f the solution to this problem is to use the lifter sections 28 which are arranged to be moveable in an upwardly and inwardly direction. The lifter sections 28 are normally moved using mechanical arms which for clarity are not shown in the Figures but they could be moved by any suitable means. Moving the lifter sections 28 upwardly and inwardly to the position shown in FIG. 2f will cause the vortex finder plate 10 to lift off from the upper surface 44 of the lower core part 24 and the lifter sections 28 to move out of the undercuts 18. The vortex finder plate 10 would then be free from the tool 22.
Such a tool 22 is therefore expensive to make and the process for making each vortex finder plate 10 using the tool 22 is complex. Alternative vortex finder plates which could be manufactured more easily would therefore be desirable.
The problems associated with making a vortex finder plate can become even more complex if it is desired to integrate other components of a cyclonic separating apparatus with the vortex finder plate.